


oh, my god, i feel it in the air

by heterocosmica



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Allison Argent & Jackson Whittemore - Freeform, Fruit, M/M, Past Heather/Stiles Stilinski, Post-Canon, Stiles Stilinski & Claudia Stilinski - Freeform, Summer, a brief hint of a sex scene at the very end, hints of: - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23447695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heterocosmica/pseuds/heterocosmica
Summary: Stiles, summer of 2026
Relationships: Heather & Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski/Jackson Whittemore
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37





	oh, my god, i feel it in the air

The days are long, uncomfortably still and quiet, as the summer pours over him like thick, amber honey. It's days like these, the ones where he's just a person, lying on top of his covers in boxer shorts that must have been red at some point but are now only a sickly washed out orange with a slight pink tint, that he feels like there's nothing more in the world but him.

He trudges to the kitchen anyway, slow and listless, feeling himself start to sweat the very moment his body starts moving, pours himself a glass of lemonade from the fridge, leaning his whole back on its door, hoping to somehow soak the coolness from the plastic. It only makes his skin stick to it uncomfortably and he sighs, pouring himself another glass before heading back to bed.

A warm, humid breeze on his face wakes him that night. It carries the sweet smell of peaches, makes his body feel like it's been covered in the sticky syrup his mother used to make every summer, sliding down his throat, smooth and cloying.

Not yet awake from the slow, hazy dreams he'd been having since he left Beacon Hills for good the last time, he can almost hear a giddy laugh of a little girl, almost see the golden sunshine in her hair as she spins, around and around, in her blue dress, in the corner of his eye. He turns to look and she vanishes, leaving behind an echo _Stiles, Stiiii-leeesss, Stiiiiiiiiii-_

*

There's no air conditioning in this building, just as there's no air conditioning in any other building around. He's in the old center of the city, after all, all of these buildings were made before air conditioning was even the vaguest idea in the mind of humans. His phone says it's 42 degrees and he knows it's hot, he does, but a little voice in his head still chimes in with _what is this Celsius bullshit?_

Still, it's colder inside, the stone covered walls haven't soaked up the heat yet and they're giving him a slight respite. Once Jackson gets there, they would have to go out again and he's certainly not looking forward to being in the sun some more.

*

"Do you remember first grade?"

The question seems sudden, completely out of the blue, and yet, it's all he's been thinking about, all he's been remembering, since the heatwave started.

"Sure."

"Remember," Jackson says as they take a seat on the only unoccupied bench protected by however flimsy a shade, "that Mandy girl? The one who sat with Heather, in the row next to us?"

"Vaguely. The one with the stuffed dog?"

"Yeah."

There's a long pause, the still silence of the day floating slowly through them. It feels like there are no other people in the world, even though he can clearly see a couple on the next bench over, the old lady walking her pug, the three little girls on the swings...

"She's getting married in a month. I got an invite."

He snorts, looking at the other man with a grin. "She probably thinks you'll send an expensive gift and not bother to come, you know that, right?"

"Well, she's half right. I'm certainly not buying her anything, not after she stole my scissors and then _broke them_."

And Stiles tips his head back and laughs, bright and bubbly, until his eyes start watering and his breath catches.

*

Skin sticks to skin and it's uncomfortable and gross but also comforting. With his face pressed into Jackson's shoulder, he can smell his warm skin, the light smell of clean sweat covering them both. The window is open and the air is flowing through the room but that somehow makes it worse, makes the breathing harder.

In a move his very core knows by now, he presses his lips to the other man's shoulder before dragging himself out of bed and into the bathroom, plugging the tub and leaving it to fill with cold water.

There is a little plastic crate of cut up watermelon and a bottle of some pineapple flavoured soda calling his name from the fridge and he takes them both into the bathroom, settling into the now full tub and letting himself relax. Almost offhandedly, he wonders why the world seems so silent as he leans back and drifts off thinking of roasted corn and cotton candy.

*

At the farmer's market, they buy a bag of peaches. On the tram back home, he pulls one out of their bright pink shopping trolley, bites into its soft flesh and feels the juices run. It tastes like sticky fingers and first kisses and his mother's love.

*

There's a photo on the shelf by Jackson's side of the bed. It's Jackson and Allison, stretched out on a couch, half on top of each other, grinning at something just out of frame. He doesn't know when the picture was taken, or where really, because it certainly wasn't anywhere he'd ever been before. He doesn't ask.

There are three photos on his bedside table. His parents, years younger than he is now, sitting in his grandmother's garden, a climbing rose blooming pink next to his mother's face. Him and Heather, hands and faces sticky, knees skinned, mouths full of apricot, their skin shining in the summer sun. Jackson, a few years back, pulling a very burnt meatloaf from the oven in this very same apartment. 

There is a photo in the top drawer of his bedside table that never sits out. Malia and his father, eating pizza on the faded couch in the Stilinski living room. Some things are for no one's eyes but his.

*

Everything is slow. It's like their bodies gave up once their minds started lagging. The heat makes it feel like he's sweating away brain cells.

*

A little girl runs past their window, giggling brightly as she stretches her arms out, as if about to take flight. Her blue dress floats in the air behind her, not quite catching up.

The geraniums on the windowsill are letting off their powdery scent, heavy and unpleasant in a strange way; he can't help breathing it in just like he can't help poking at a healing bruise.

The sun is scorching, shining right at the window, but the geraniums don't seem to care. Anything would wilt in this heat, anything but the pink flowers in front of him and the little girl in her blue dress.

*

That night, he dreams of fingers getting stuck in wet, knotted hair. Of honey pouring down his throat, so thick it makes him choke. Of chewing on black locust flowers.

There are green and brown bruises on her shins and she squeals a _catch me!_ before she takes off, the blue dress sticking to her wet skin. He can feel the grass under his bare feet, the squelch of mud under the grass. He catches her by the arm, looks at her face.

_Are you crying?_ He asks but gets no answer.

*

"Maybe we should get married." Jackson says, staring firmly at the cucumber he's slicing.

"Maybe."

"Do you _want_ to get married?"

"I don't know, but maybe we should."

*

The old lady three floors above them comes over for coffee sometimes. Stiles cooks it like his grandmother used to drink, one cup of water in the pot, let it boil, add two heaping teaspoons of ground coffee, let it rise once, twice. He always keeps the rose turkish delight in the cabinet next to the coffee, just for her.

She talks about her youth, about the river she'd swim in with her friends when the weather got like this, about running barefoot everywhere she could.

She brings them fruit that her niece sent over. It's raspberry season and her niece and her husband grow raspberries and blackberries and apples and pears, so Stiles eats raspberries, one by one, putting them on top of his pinkie finger before taking it off with his teeth, and he listens.

*

He thinks maybe him and Heather were never really friends. They orbited each other, slowly leaning closer and closer, never really touching.

He wonders if that's what Allison was to Jackson. Or if, maybe, she was more?

A friend? A confidant? A love? A certainty?

He thinks, maybe, if things had started off differently, he would be someone else, someone foreign. Wonders if that would have made him better.

*

He presses his chest to Jackson's back, both of them slick with sweat, skin sticky and hot. Moves slowly as the man under him sighs in release.

The window next to the bed is open wide, and the sky opens up as his tension finally snaps, rain pouring mercilessly.

The air around them cools and they fall asleep easily, clinging to each other.

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I don't know if this makes any sense but I've been in self quarantining, home, alone, for almost six weeks and everything is quiet and time feels only hypothetical so this is mostly stream of consciousness showing my current mind state, forgive me.


End file.
